Let it go...

A couple of days ago, I gave a homework assignment to the Alliance students and the theme was "Letting go". I was not supposed to write the post myself but evaluate those that were written and give my feedback. Well... @eco-alex had a different thing in mind. He made the same theme for his question of the week: "What is the value of letting go? What have you let go of recently and how has it changed your life?" So... Here I am, writing the post that I did not want to write and talking about the most painful experience of my life and the biggest lesson that I have learned from it. Stepping outside of your comfort zone is a good thing, right? Right?

The first time I saw the movie Frozen was when I returned from my fifth visit to the emergency room. Back then I was taking 7 different medications for my digestion because my body was refusing even water let alone food. I lost 20 kilograms (44 pounds) in a month, taking heart medication, screaming and or crying all the time, visiting a different doctor every day, testing my blood, urine, heart, stomach, lungs, and refusing to admit the obvious. My body was reacting to my mind, I was experiencing a nervous breakdown and shutting down. I was ready for hospitalization...

To admit to people that you are crazy is hard but to admit it to yourself seemed like a good place to start so I visited a psychologist and got my diagnoses. Got, not accepted yet. I was diagnosed with clinical depression, panic disorder, psychosomatic digestion disorder, and severe atypical agoraphobia. Me crazy? No. What would I tell the people? No, no. It was not possible. I was the rock, there was something obviously seriously wrong with my body, not the mind. I must have some sort of cancer or something because these diagnoses do not make any sense. Me crazy? No, no, no, and no. It was the body that was wrong, not the brain.

Admitting to myself that it was the brain came hard. Questions like who I am and why is this happening to me had to wait because I was more concern with how will my friends and family react to this. They will think I am weak, broken, not a normal person. They would think less of me or even worse, feel sorry for me. They would pity me and discard me. Change the way they act around me and they would be disappointed with me because this does not happen to strong people. This happens to weak ones. To negative ones. Was I all that? Was I weak, negative, broken? Was I not normal? The answers my mind created were yes yes and yes and I only got even more depressed. It was time for them to lock me up and throw away the key...

The only thing that kept me from the asylum was agoraphobia. It was so severe that leaving my house was out of the question, leaving to the bathroom alone was out of the question back then, let alone anything else so I stayed home and left the house only when I had to go to therapy. Medication came with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, Beta-blockers, and benzodiazepines. Meditate and take your medication, meditate and take your medication, try not to die, meditate and take your medication...

My doctor told me that all the medication in the world would not help me if I do not decide to help myself and no matter how hard I tried to help myself, without medication, I would fail. The combination of modern and alternative medicine was the key. I was taking medicine, going to therapy, meditating, having shiatzu massages and working on myself. I had to get better fast and go on with my life, I didn't have time for this bullsh*t. I needed to be like I was before. I needed to be good and normal again.

I was a faker. I faked everything. I was sad when people expected me to be sad and happy when I had to be happy. I did what needed to be done and no matter how much I have tried to convince myself that I am my own person, I was not. I was dependant on the opinions of others. I needed validation like oxygen and all my life decisions were made in a way to avoid any criticism what so ever. Everyone needed to love me, everyone needed to be satisfied and proud of me. I needed to be the best in everything I do and having problems was out of the questions. Problems are for the weak ones, they are for losers. I was not a loser.

If you do not listen to yourself, to your wants, needs, and emotions, you will go crazy sooner or later. That is what happened to me and to get better I needed to let go of what I thought others wanted me to be and work on what I want. I needed to let go of my intention to be what I believed would be best for others and become what was best for me. I was trapped in my own delusions of what was expected of me and tied up with my synapses that were telling me that others need to be happy in order for me to be happy. I was caged with my own thoughts, a prisoner of my own mind. But what did I want? Who am I anyway? What is it that I want to become? That is when my metaphorical wings started to break out of the cage.

I was ready to fly the moment I had let go of my old self. I did not let go of other people, I never had them in the first place. Their thoughts were theirs and were none of my business. I needed to let go of me, those parts that were not serving me. I needed to let go of myself, to lose myself in order not to find myself but to build myself up from scratch.

People who surround me know that I am a bit different from them now. I do not care about things that they do and that is fine by me. If it is not fine by them, it is their problem, not mine. I have my tears and I have my smiles, my ups and downs but they are mine, not theirs. They are genuine and not fake. My every emotion is valuable and teaches me something. Before anything that I do, there is a thought in my mind "Will this make me happy?". This is how I live now. I am not searching for happiness, I am living it. I am not happy all the time (and I do not believe such a thing is possible because contrast is a normal and healthy part of our lives) but I do aim to be and am mostly successful at it. I am definitely happier than I was before.

I am happier than most of the people I come across, at least that is how it seems to me. This does not make me better than them. I do not compare myself with them anymore. They are who they are and I am who I am. I compare myself only to myself from the past. Am I better today than I was yesterday? Am I happier? Am I smarter, kinder, wiser, more open, more honest, more satisfied? Others do not concern me. I could not change them anyway. My happy wings can carry more than one person but only if others decide to join me. I have let go of the want that I should be like others and that others should be like me. Diversity is what makes this planet marvelous and we are all special if we truly are who we are.